Wednesday, February 8, 2017

This blogger is about to close up shop. After ten years of exercising his constitutional right to freedom of expression by blogging, he no longer feels safe. Self-censorship, it seems, is now the safer option.

Last year he received a clarifying email from a brave compatriot. "I have no problem" with circulating my comments, the mailer said. "However", s/he cautioned, "it may bring problems in the future with the enforcement of the Cybercrimes Act" of 2015 in Tanzania.

Article 52(1)(a) of the Act partly defines a "seditious intent" as "an intention to bring hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against the lawful authority of the Government of the United Republic." In subsection (d), the definition includes the raising of “discontent or disaffection amongst people or section of people."

“In determining whether the intention for which an act was done, any word spoken or any document published, was or was not seditious”, Article 52(3) stipulates, “every person shall be deemed to intend the consequences which would naturally follow from his conduct at the time and in the circumstances in which he conduct himself.” Then Article 53(1) defines seditious offences in terms of:

For a non-profit-making blog that is an enormous amount. More significantly, suspects are left to the (discretionary) mercy of state apparatuses when it comes to determining whether they have/had a "seditious intent" and/or committed "seditious offences." Hence the cautious would play safe by self-censorship lest they are charged.

Karibu kwenye ulingo wa kutafakari kuhusu tunapotoka,tulipo,tuendako na namna ambavyo tutafika huko tuendako/Welcome to a platform for reflecting on where we are coming from, where we are, where we are going and how we will get there